It’s a good time to live in the South Bay. Well, I typically enjoy it because I can park outside my house for longer than two hours during the week and not get a $63 parking ticket from SFPD, but I digress. This year is particularly exciting because some of the best musicals in the world are right at my backdoor. No hour drive north or hassle for parking or cabs.
I saw two Broadway San Jose productions this season: Spring Awakening and Avenue Q. Both were amazing and both were cheap.
Singer Duncan Sheik of “Barely Breathing” fame in the 90s is behind the score for Spring Awakening. The dark, but clever tale got rave reviews and I got a front row seat for $20! Not bad.
A random offering on the Broadway San Jose’s site for a promotional code got us the front row. I made eye contact with the actors and could see their sweat! It was really cool, right until the end when we felt like we were clapping forever and it turned out we were the only ones in the audience not standing.
Word to the wise: Always assume there will be a standing ovation, especially when you’ve been giving the lead actor come hither eyes for two hours.
Avenue Q is what happens when sex, drugs and racial insensitivity hit Sesame Street. It’s pretty awesome to see the knock off of the ambiguously gay duo of Bert and Ernie actually talk about their sexuality and the cookie monster knock-off indulges in porn instead of sweets. Our tickets were just $25 on a Saturday night.
The only problem is the shows only comes for about a week, so you’re options are limited. I was surprised, however, to find several tickets online even the week before the Saturday night I went for Avenue Q.
DOIN’ IT WELL: Legally Blonde is the last show of the season and runs March 16-21. My friends and I paid $75 for third tier seats to see this play in San Francisco on a weekday. You can find seats as cheap as $20 on a weekend at the San Jose Center for the Performing Arts. Now that is worthy of a standing ovation.
Marika Krause produces NBC Bay Area Mornings. She works overnights, so she crams more fun and Bay Area adventures into the weekend than most people do in a week. You can catch her weekly blog right here on NBC Bay Area.
